Allegany Area Historical Association

Transcription

1 Allegany Area Historical Association March Issue XXIX Vol. 1 PRESIDENT S REPORT AAHA lost a longtime valued member with the death of Judge Paul B. Kelly in November. Paul was one of our earliest members and was a trustee of the association in our early days. He was very instrumental in guiding us through the process of acquiring our Heritage Center building. Changing a church to a secular use is a very complicated legal operation, and Paul was our guide through the maze of New York State laws. We will miss him, and his legal wisdom. After Paul s death we received several memorials honoring him, and rather than have them put into the general fund and go up in smoke when we paid the gas bill, we decided to do a project we have had in mind for some time. We had Joe Crisafulli build a bookcase unit in the library which will allow us to get rid of several pieces of donated furniture and combine things into one unit. Potter Lumber Company donated the oak lumber that Joe used. We will now look very organized. We are blessed to have people in the community like Joe and Mel Duggan we can call on when things need to be done. Whether the problem is large as when our ceiling fell down and Mel came to our rescue or small like needing a bookcase built, our friends are always there for us. Without them we d be out of business. Thanks, gentlemen! An art - history project is being worked on by the fourth graders of Allegany Limestone Elementary School, which will benefit the historical association. It includes two St. Bonaventure University students, Grant Lytle, an art student, and James Buttram, a history major, working with Mrs. Evelyn Sabina, the Education Director at the Quick Arts Center at SBU. Fourth grade is when students learn about their local history, so Mr. Buttram worked up a walking tour of the Village of Allegany, combining recent pictures he took with pictures he selected from our files. After the tour, the students will draw a building of their choice for display at a reception at the Quick Center on February 22nd. That s where Mr. Lytle comes in. He showed the students how to draw buildings using perspective, vanishing points and a horizon. These pictures will be auctioned off at the reception and our association will receive the proceeds. The first part of December Mr. Buttram and I went to the school and showed his PowerPoint presentation to all the fourth grades, giving them the history of all the buildings shown. It was a real learning experience for them to find out all the past uses of the buildings, which really haven t changed all that much on the upper stories. On a bright cold day right before Christmas vacation, the students came down Fifth Street and walked the length of Main Street to Second Street, to the 1855 Heritage Center. They had looked at all the buildings Mr. Buttram had shown them, and now it was time for a Can You Guess What This Is quiz. I had gathered artifacts from our collection, and some of my things, and we had a ball for 45 minutes! One guess about a rug beater was a tennis racquet, and my grandmother s wooden darning egg completely mystified them. Of course, I had to explain what darning was. They throughly enjoyed themselves, and loved learning about Allegany s history. I think the walking tour will be done every year. Last October I asked in the newsletter for the donation of a gently used computer. Lo and behold, the answer was as close as my own family. My daughter, Lucy Benson, said that everyone in their family had gone to laptops and they had a computer system they would be glad to donate to AAHA. She took the computer to Hagen Computer Services and they wiped it clean, and then she installed everything for us, which was great because I m not sure I could have done it. So we now have an almost new computer, printer, a wireless mouse and wireless keyboard, and a flat screen monitor. Thanks, Benson family! continued

2 Page 2 For many, many years Kate Geise has been keeping a scrapbook for AAHA containing all our publicity and our newsletters. Since Kate just turned 97 and is currently living at the Pines Nursing Home, she has decided to retire from her scrapbook duties. Thanks, Kate, for a job well done - it s volunteers like you who make the organization run. Eileen Shabala has offered to take over Kate s job. We have two other scrapbook keepers - Alice Altenburg collects all the obituaries of Allegany people, and Margaret Parker collects information about Allegany businesses. We have some items to give away for FREE! We received some Christmas cookies for our sale in lovely decorated tins, and have 5 or 6 tins left. They are free for the asking - perhaps you could take them and return them next year at the sale with cookies in them! There will be some major construction being started in Allegany this spring. Iroquois Group in Olean, an insurance agency network started by Paul Branch, and currently owned by Laurie Branch, bought three houses across from the Town Hall, had them demolished, and will build their new headquarters on the site. The architectural drawings show a building that will not be out of place with its surroundings. It will be a nice addition to Main Street. Speaking of Paul Branch, he died on January 20th in Olean. I m sure a lot of our out of town members knew him. His late wife was Claire (Toni) Armstrong who taught at one time in Allegany. Our treasurer, Alice Altenburg, reports that there are some members who haven t paid their DUES yet this year. If you are like me, you make a mental note to do this, but the note gets lost somewhere in the recesses of your mind. You write it down and then forget when you put the piece of paper. So while you are reading this, if you are one of our delinquent members, drop everything, get your checkbook and write that check immediately! Single membership is $10, family is $15 and patron is $20 or more. Now that you have done that, you can continue reading the rest of the newsletter with a clear conscience. We have another passing to report. Ed Dornow died in Alabama where he was living to be close to a daughter. His father, Karl Dornow, started Dornow s Pharmacy in Whe Ed got out of the Navy, he joined his father in the store, and took over the store when his father retired. He sold the business in the late 1970 s and worked for several more years in the pharmacy department at Olean General Hospital before retiring for good. He loved to talk about Allegany s history and I learned a lot from him each time I went to the pharmacy. He was a long time member of our group. FRANCIE POTTER, PRESIDENT CHRISTMAS COOKIE SALE A bit of history. We got to wondering how long and where we have had the cookie sale, which is one of our primary fund raisers. So I did a bit of research in old newsletters. We started in 1982 at Bradners, when the store was located in what is now the Wal-Mart Plaza, and were there for three years. The first year we charged $2 a dozen for the cookies, had 117 dozen to sell, and made $248. In 1985, we moved next door to J. C. Penney s and were there for three years. In 1988 we moved to the Olean Center Mall and were there for sixteen years. It was a chore to move our tables, chairs and coolers of cookies in and out of there, and the most we ever made was $937. In 2004 we moved to Nature s Remedy in Allegany, the old Smith and Schultz store for our out-of-town members, and have done very well there, with our best year making $1,271. Our local members appreciate being able to shop right in Allegany. This year we had fewer bakers and fewer cookies than last year but made a profit of $1,044. Many people who cannot bake any more send in donations which really helps. A big Thank You to everyone who bakes, donates and works on this important fund raiser. Thanks also to Linda Kruppner, owner of Nature s Remedy, for allowing us to have our sale in her store. We really appreciate it.

3 Page 3 A BUSINESS NOTE FROM 1955 We found the following article in the Allegany Citizen. Did any of our members work at this plant? New Industry to Occupy Former Instrument Building - A new industry will be in operation here soon occupying the former plant of the Allegany Instrument Corporation on East Union Street. A new corporation to be known as the Hol-Chrome Company, is now in process of organization by Wendell D. Holcomb of Portville, who is long experienced in the field of chrome plating. Associated with Mr. Holcomb in the formation of the new company will be Harry M. Krampf and Dr. Joseph Wintermantel, both of this village, who own the building, as well as a number of other area men. The plant will be engaged in hard chrome processing of certain types of machinery, bearings, cylinders and other parts and it is expected that because of the nature of the business there will be 24 hour shifts of workers. Equipment for the plant is now being installed in the former instrument company building, and it is expected that the factory will be fully equipped and in actual operation within two months. THE GOOD OLDE DAYS Among the many interesting items in our files is the day book for the year 1868 from the Willard and Smith General Store. Many of the names in the book are very familiar to readers today. We hope you enjoy this glimpse of the past. From John G. Wiedman for 1 coat $2.50 From Z. C. Fuller for 40 lbs. nails $2.50 for 1 hat.20 From Andrew Krieger for 50 dz. eggs $7.50 From Thomas J. Hall for 6 lbs. sugar.75 for 39 1/4 sheeting $7.37 From Jacob Grader for 1 umbrella $2.00 From Kenyon Wilber for 9 3/4 lbs fish.98 From Stephen Schuster for 1/4 lb. tobacco.25 From Joseph Barnes for 1 pr. brogans (work shoes) $2.25 From Nicholas Felt for 1 dz. buttons.05 From James Wiltse for 1 pt. turpentine.16 There are a couple of mysteries in the list - why on earth would anyone want 50 dozen eggs? Did the fish come from the Allegheny River?

4 Page 4 Memorials For: Peg Carver From: Leo and Patty Nenno Margaret Parker Alice Altenburg For: Bill O Brien From: Lynn and Mary Ann Lounsbury For: Clair Gallets From: Francis J. Hirt For Jane and William Morris From: Francis J. Hirt For: Ed Dornow From: Bob and Francie Potter For: Paul Nenno From: Carolyn Wing John and Jillian Walsh For: Pete and Dorothy Fortuna From: Don and Becky Black For: Richard Straub From: Don and Becky Black For: Judge Paul B. Kelly From: Bob and Francie Potter Margaret Green Kathleen Karl Alice Altenburg Loretta Eaton Wendy Brand Hardiman Family Richard and Bonnie Yaw Bob and Susan Bubbs, Sandy Rehler Francis J. Hirt Ray and Joyce Jonak Carol Livingston and Family Marcia Karl Dick and Shirley Russell Pat and Kathy Premo Duane and Caroline Clark Ben and Lena Hwang John and Jillian Walsh Michael and Martha Nenno Rosemary Ryan Julie Wolf David and Martha Sabato Batavia High School Faculty and Staff Batavia Teachers Association Carolyn Wing Cattaraugus County Family Court

5 Page 5 WE GET MAIL - Karen Field Streif, Vernon Field s daughter, wrote to say that she enjoyed the story in the November newsletter about Vernon taking The Long Way Home From School. Apparently she had forgotten that story from Vernon s past. A note from Judy Booth Wilson says that the article on Burt Ensworth (in the November newsletter) brought back memories as he was my bus driver when I started school in Sept. of I lived on the State Road (Rt. 17). On days my mother knew she d be late getting home from shopping, she would stop at Burt s gas station and ask him to keep me on the bus and drop me off as he returned from the route to Vandalia and the North Nine Mile. He and I would chat after the other kids had been dropped off, and I remember him as a friendly person who took special care of his passengers. I feel fortunate to have known him and Mom was lucky to have a reliable free baby sitter. I always enjoy the newsletter. We received a nice thank-you note from Linore Lounsbury, the Executive Director of Genesis House, a homeless shelter in Olean, for the money and paper goods we donated after our Community Christmas service. She also added that perhaps the Historical Association members would like to tour Genesis House. Just give me a call and we ll set it up. So if you are interested, call Linore at Genesis House and she will be happy to set up a time for you. We received some nice presents from William Wing of DeWitt, Michigan. He sent an Erie-Lackawanna railroad calendar for 2010, and the picture for January shows the rail yard in Salamanca on a -10 degree day and an engine that had to be dug out of heavy snow - sound familiar? He also sent a video tape and a DVD, both of which have lots of footage in and around Western New York relating to railroads, especially in the 1950 s. They are very interesting, and I know that we have railroad buffs in our membership, so if you would be interested in borrowing these, please contact me. These items fill in a gap in our collection as we did not have too much relating to the Erie Railroad which was a very important part of our local history. Thanks for thinking of us. Mary Smith McCole of Olean is joining the association because she was given a couple of newsletters by members Patty and Leo Nenno and I was hooked! She belongs to the Smith-Boser-Schultz, etc. clans of Allegany. Betty Smith of Stuart, Florida is the person who donated the 1886 cookbook mentioned in our last newsletter. She said her mother, Edith White of Olean who was born in 1895, had that cookbook for years. She found out about us from Linda Rado Backhaus, who arranged for us to send her a newsletter, for which I m sincerely grateful. So the moral of the story is to share your newsletters with others from the Allegany area - they are likely to become members! CAN YOU SOLVE A MYSTERY FOR US? L Image Beauty Salon at 9 East Main Street was recently painted, and something showed up. Above each of the three windows on the second floor are the initials M - S - C. I m sure the initials were there before as they obviously are part of the window casing, but didn t stand out because everything was painted one color. Apparently this building was, at one time, Gagliardi s (sp?) Grocery Store. Can anyone help us as to what the initials mean?

6 Page 6 NEXT MEETING We will meet on Sunday, March 14 at 2 p.m. at the Heritage Center. Greg Kinal will speak to us about the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. His talk is entitled The Background to the Plot to Kill Lincoln, as well as all the Characters who Played a Part in that Terrible Night. Mr. Kinal, a Social Studies teacher for 40 years at Pembroke Central School in Genesee County, spoke to us last year about immigration and Ellis Island. As those who attended that meeting know, he is a dynamic speaker who really knows history. He makes his topic come alive, so don t miss his return. See you on Sunday, March 14 at 2 p.m. at the Heritage Center. Allegany Area Historical Association P.O. BOX 162 Allegany, NY RETURN SERVICE REQUESTED NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION U.S. POSTAGE PAID PERMIT NO. 32 ALLEGANY, NY INSIDE SPECIAL ISSUE: Presidents Report Old Chrome Plating Plant M-S-C Mystery!